Dispute: What happens if there's a court order with my name on it but it's not me?

Who this document is for:

→ Anyone who declares a public record is not them due to a duplicate name situation and wishes to protect their identity

When you are ready, please head to https://openroom.ca/dashboard/issue/not-me to fill out the "This is Not Me" Dispute Form. 

Cases of duplicate name happens when members of the community is using Openroom's Public Record Search Engine to screen tenants. 

When it comes to public records, they are meant to be accessed by the public due to Canada's Open Court Principle. With millions of records of names, there are cases whereby a name might coincide with yours. 

To combat those situations, Openroom needs to identify who you are and separate you from the actual record(s) that may match your name when you are not the person on file. 

Members of Openroom searches for public records related to tenancy using the following attributes:

→ First name and Last name (mandatory)

→ Birth Date (optional)

→ A current or past address (optional)

In the cases there are duplicate names known in the system, we prompt for a Birth Date or Past Address as a mandatory field. 

→ First name and Last name (mandatory)

→ Birth Date (mandatory); or

→ A current or past address (mandatory)

If the birth date or past address is not known, then we will not share any results to the individual conducting the Public Record search.

We prevent searches when the user is not clear on their intent, and that is why it's crucial for us to know if you are impacted and for you to share more information with us to protect your identity from misuse.

First, see if a further investigation is needed

☐ Send in an inquiry into [email protected] to start an investigation to see if you need to proceed to verify your identity.

If investigation from Openroom states "yes", next steps are:

☐ Pull a free Equifax Consumer Credit Report on yourself. Learn how.

☐ Submit the information to Openroom through our secure channel within Openroom only (https://openroom.ca/dashboard/issue/not-me). You will need to log in so we know it's you.

☐ Identify the record you are referencing with the URL link of the search

At times, there may be additional information we will request from you:

☐ A phone call or video call to you from Openroom to verify details

☐ Pull a free TransUnion Consumer Credit Report on yourself. Learn how.

Step 1: Personal Details

You'll be providing us with your name, date of birth, phone number to reach you

Step 2: Verification of who you say you are

Openroom relies on Persona to help us mitigate impersonation fraud. We've chosen Persona because they comply with industry security standards such as SOC2 & GDPR compliance. They are trusted by well known companies such as Coursera, Linkedin, OpenAI and Etsy. You can learn more about Persona at https://withpersona.com.

Step 3: Provide an Equifax Report

You'll be pulling a free Equifax report. The date of your Equifax report will be the date we use to verify records on and prior to that date. Therefore, the latest Equifax report is the most useful.

Please see How to Get a Free Equifax Report through the Equifax website.

Step 4: Submit any further additional context

If there's more information to share with us, this is where you'll type into.

Once submitted, you will receive a confirmation of your dispute submission. All disputes are looked at within the first 10 days of submission. 

Openroom is a Consumer Report Agency (CRA) and thus, must abide by the Consumer Reporting Act (e.g. Consumer Reporting Act in Ontario). We take privacy and data handling very seriously and have put in various security measures to ensure your data is safe within Openroom. 

Should you have concerns, you can reach out to [email protected] and we'll ensure you hear from us within 5 business days.